A Heartburning Wager

[Two Male Leads / Equally Matched / Slow Burn / A Little Angst Makes It Sweeter]

A cold-on-the-outside, warm-on-the-inside assassin X a ruthless, merciless painter

“I don't believe in love, that wretched thing. It devours the heart and bewilders the soul.”

“Painter Ming, let's make a wager.”

He could paint three thousand dazzling colors and give them to you.

In the end, only a promise remained, captured in ink on paper.

His name was Wu'an, because on the page,

he revealed the specks of starlight he longed for,

and so, there was no more darkness.

His name was Chi,

because it took him so long to feel the colors in that painting.

“Wu'an Ming, I hear you're afraid of pain. How does it feel to bleed to death?”

“Young master, who went away: I hear you hate winter most. How does it feel to walk alone through the snow?”

Ling Chen had loved him in secret for sixteen years. Every year, he longed to see his little Chi again and asked why the painter had to be him. His love was hidden so deeply that he never managed to say, even at the very end, “I've waited for you year after year.” He could see that the reflection of someone else had already appeared in his little Chi's eyes.